These Are The World's 12 Ugliest Animals

Not all animals are cute and fuzzy. Some are downright ugly, but they deserve love too. To that end, the Ugly Animal Preservation Society is looking to the public to help it pick a new mascot. Here are the 12 contenders.

They have teamed with the National Science + Engineering Competition and comedians like Stephen Fry and Simon Pegg to find the ugliest creature on Earth. The celebrity presenters have made campaign videos for their ugly animals of choice, which you can see on YouTube.

The Society aims to convince you that these “ugly” animals are just as important to our ecosystems as the cute and cuddly ones. They even have their own type of charm.

This ugly glob of life is called the blobfish, which is actually well suited to its environment up to 4,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. Its jelly body keeps it floating in the high-pressure waters.

The long nose on the pig-nosed turtle is used as a snorkel so it can hide under water. It's actually the only surviving member of an ancient family of turtles. It lives in Australia and New Guinea.

This slug might not look like much but has a special trick. It can jump to escape predators. It's found throughout the Americas and is called the Dromedary jumping slug because of the strange hump on its back.

This flabby frog is called the Titicaca water frog, and is the biggest on Earth that spends its entire life in water. The flabby folds of skin help it breathe, as they absorb oxygen from the water. Its latin name means 'aquatic scrotum' -- yuck.

Known as the Axotol, this ugly salamander can regenerate entire limbs. It lives in Mexico City and is threatened by the pollution and rapid city expansion there.

Lots of people dislike bats and think they are ugly, but they are incredibly special mammals. They are the ONLY flying mammals. They see with sound! All 18 species of British bats are nominated for the ugly animal award. This one is the Greater Horseshoe Bat.

The greater short-horned lizard is found right in our backyard. It's officially a lizard but looks like an ugly toad. It's so ugly it cries stinky blood -- ok, not because it's ugly but as a defence mechanism to scare away predators.

Parrots are usually cute, brightly coloured animals that mimic human speech. But not this Kakapo, a critically endangered parrot that can't even fly but has giant ugly legs to walk around. It lives in New Zealand.

This European common eel is ugly, but seems to be quite tasty -- it's a common snack and is threatened by overfishing. It grows uglier as it matures, changing colour from transparent to yellow to dark grey.

Pubic lice are gross and gross-looking. Some reports suggest that they may be decreasing in number because of increased hygiene practices after 3 million years of living in our hair.

This ugly beetle literally lives in poop, elephant and buffalo dung to be exact. Called the flightless dung beetle, it is found only in South Africa and its population is plummeting as populations of its pooper of choice decline.